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Motherboard Audio Comes Of Age

Posted by michael on from the master-blaster dept.

darth_silliarse writes "ExtremeTech have thankfully confirmed that I am not completely deaf - onboard m/b sound is not as bad as it sounds. Is onboard sound for the poor, needy or completely bone idle? What are other peoples opinions of m/b sound? If nothing else, it frees up a PCI or ISA slot... ;o)"

12 of 367 comments (clear)

  1. The surprise of audio by freeio · · Score: 5, Funny

    I spent so many years with no audio on any system, that the first hardware that had it was a shock: KDE starts with a bongo riff?!

    All those years I thought those gears made a different sound.

    --
    Soli Deo Gloria
  2. Good Enough by KingJoshi · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I may be deaf, but I don't think most people are audiophiles. So motherboard sound is good enough. I think nvidia2 graphics cards are good enough for the masses because they don't play the latest and greatest games.

    BTW, how many slots do we really need? With so many USB peripherals, PCI and especially ISA slots aren't the important resources they once were.

    --
    In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
    1. Re:Good Enough by kilogram · · Score: 5, Interesting

      As a part-time DJ, running audio through computers and MP3 most of the time; on-board audio is good enough. The slightly degraded quality of the MP3s make it impossible to hear a difference between a onboard chip and a Sound Blaster Audigy, which we recently upgraded to. The difference is that the Audigy is capable of doing proper surround (which is not normally a concern at a disco, but we use it to separate speaker and headphone sound coming from the same computer, and thus reducing delay coming from using two separate soundcards).

      The onboard sound is quite good enough, you have to have a heck of a stereo to think it is "unusable", which I've heard a few people say IRL. As long as you are playing MP3s/OGG/, this will be the degrading you hear, not the onboard chip.

  3. Not on a Mac it 'aint by Anoraknid+the+Sartor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Try the following:

    1) play mp3 through decent stereo straight from (Quicksilver) Mac.

    2) Burn same Mp3 to CD and play through same stereo.

    from CD is quite a lot better.....

    Why?

    --
    Find Japanese addresses in English on Google Maps Japan: http://diddlefinger.com/
  4. Contradiction or tongue in cheek? by Munelight · · Score: 5, Funny

    "onboard m/b sound is not as bad as it sounds"

    Oh, and buy this monitor too... I know it's scratched and can't seem to show the colour blue... But trust me, the picture's not as bad as it looks.

  5. must be a PC thing by v1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My comps have always had good onboard sound. I never understood why anyone would make a motherboard without it in the first place. I realize some of today's really high quality sound cards have some things you just wouldn't find on a built-on, but there's really no excuse for lack of at least basic audio support.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  6. Sound cards by nother_nix_hacker · · Score: 5, Funny
    If nothing else, it frees up a PCI or ISA slot... ;o)"
    If you push hard enough an SB live will fit into the AGP slot and still work on Linux! :)
  7. Re:It's all in the speakers by afidel · · Score: 5, Informative

    And much better than speakers is a decent set of headphones. Cans will beat speakers costing several times as much. Get a pair of cheaper Sennheisers (HD487's) or Grado's (SR 60's) which come in well under the $100 mark but will just blow you away with their awsome sound quality if you are used to anything but an audiophile setup. From there you might get into some of the more expensive models but these are great for me and I'm used to studio monitors.

    --
    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  8. Performance hit? by Realistic_Dragon · · Score: 5, Informative

    There were some articles on Tom's Hardware a while back (can't find them now) which gave anything up to an 18% performance hit (frame rate wise) for onboard sound with EAX enabled.

    Turning on EAX with my audigy or SB live platinum makes 1-2% difference.

    Presumably the onboard sound chips are using the CPU for a lot more of the grunt work - not a great thing for a gamer, or indeed for a Linux user* unless they are _sure_ that there will be (good) drivers for that chip.

    *Yes, yes, you can be a gamer _and_ a Linux user you know.

    --
    Beep beep.
  9. Noisey Anyway by Book16 · · Score: 5, Informative

    In most situations I don't think it actually matters. A computer produces so much EMI which in turn creates noise in the audio regardless of whether you are running on-board sound or otherwise. Unless you are getting the signal out of the computer digitally, there is going to be noise. The only real reason I can think of for buying a high-end peripheral sound-card is if you need it for use as part of a digital audio workstation (high smaple-rates, resolution etc... or because you want multi-channel surround. -- Book

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    -- Book
  10. The bigger surprise by Compact+Dick · · Score: 5, Funny

    is that you got audio working on Linux.

    --
    Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
  11. MB audio can definitely be a great thing. by LeoDV · · Score: 5, Funny

    My home-built system is running an Asus A7N8X Deluxe, which handles 5.1 on hardware. If I wanted to turn my computer into a home cinema or have surround sound for my games, I wouldn't even *need* one of them there fancy sound cards.

    MB audio really depends on what mb you have, but these days they manage to cram so much on motherboards it's insane... Back in my days you didn't have motherboards! You just had boards of woods and you madez furniture out of them!